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20090719

2009-07-19 -- RUSTENBURG -- A public hall was damaged by some 2,000 protesters angry at the possible disbanding of the ANC provincial executive committee in Rustenburg, North West police said.

"Police had to fire rubber bullets while trying to disperse the unruly crowd. The protesters were throwing chairs at some ministers who were attending the meeting," said Captain Elsabe Augoustides. Protesters broke windows and a glass door of the Ben Marais hall and bullets were fired – one hit an unnamed SABC cameraman, who is now in hospital. About 2,000 people attended the meeting, according to the SABC. Two people were taken in for questioning." It was not clear whether the two were formally charged, said Augoustides, but a case of public violence was opened.

Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa was mobbed the crowd – and the police had to rescue him, escorting him from the hall through a crowd of chanting marchers outside.

They disrupted the meeting because the ANC-members opposed a move by the party's National Executive Committee to disband the province's committee, the SABC reported.

Over the weekend, the NEC also voted to disband two provincial structures - North West and Western Cape. Angry ordinary ANC members confronted the Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa, prompting police to intervene. Not taking the ANC NEC decision lying down, hundreds of ANC members stormed into a hall to disrupt the provincial general council – at the centre of the storm, a decision by the ANC to disband the Provincial Executive Committee (PEC).

Mthethwa was mobbed by the crowd as they demanded an explanation about why the PEC was disbanded. Police had to intervene and Mthethwa was escorted out of the hall. Police then used rubber bullets when the protesters tried to re-enter the hall. The meeting was then cancelled.

The ANC spokesman says an interim structure that will run the province will be in place in the next few days.

The SABC reports that its cameraman, hit by "a stray bullet during the scuffle" has been admitted to a local hospital. It was not clear whether anyone else had been injured during the ruckus, said Augoustides.

The African National Congress spokesman Brian Sokutu has condemned the incident. "We will not be held to ransom by criminal elements posing as ANC members and call on the police to investigate and bring the perpetrators to book," spokesman Brian Sokutu said in a statement. "The ANC also regrets reports of an alleged shooting said to have taken place outside the hall, resulting in an SABC photographer being injured," he said.

Only 7.67 % of these armed robbers ever get convicted – and the average robber can carry out 103 robberies over a 7-year-period before he’s even caught: in South Africa, armed crime most definitely pays!

July 18 2009 New research has shown that during the past year, house robberies increased by 13.5 percent and a staggering 97 percent of all robbers are armed.

Violent crimes like these pay handsomely in South Africa without much fear of punishment: the conviction rate for house robberies is only 7.67% – as compared to the 53% rate in the USA, for instance.

This is the latest in crime intelligence research done by Dr Rudolph Zinn, senior lecturer in the School of Criminal Justice at Unisa, in an intensive study on house robberies and robbers.

Zinn, a professor in the department of forensic and crime investigation, said some 15,000 residential robberies targetting entire families were committed in 2008.

His findings also are that the average age of a house robber ranges from 19 to 26 -- and an average of 30 percent of all house robbers had either committed murder, or wouldn't hesitate to do so. Only 17 percent of house robbers were foreigners.

Robbing people is ‘their job’ – but they spend it on luxuries…

Of all arrested robbers, 90 percent had no matric or were unemployed. The 10 percent who had been employed, gave up their jobs after assessing how much they could "earn" from a robbery. Most targets were people who displayed their ‘wealth’

A robber commits 103 robberies for 7 years before he’s caught…

Only 35 percent of robbers stole for basic needs, while 65 percent enjoyed the money, spending it on items such as clothes or cars. The average robber committed 103 robberies over seven years before being caught and 97 percent of all robbers were armed. On average there were four members in a gang.

77% of robberies carried out with ‘insider information’

Intelligence is often gathered about the target home and its residents from information supplied by insiders – i.e. employees, gardeners, visitors, any person who had access to the house, and domestic workers…

Zinn said this revelation had emerged in interviews with convicted and imprisoned house robbers in the six largest correctional facilities in Gauteng.

"It was during these interviews that they revealed that 77 percent of the time, they worked on 'inside' information," he said. According to Zinn, informants were not only domestic workers, but employees, gardeners, visitors and any person who had access to the house.

The informers usually told robbers about the whereabouts of large amounts of cash, and security arrangements. The convicts said informants made the job ‘less risky’ for the robbery gangs.

According to his research, half of all house robberies in South Africa were in Gauteng. KwaZulu-Natal was second with 27.3 percent.

Zinn's report supports previous findings that most attacks occur between 7pm and midnight, while people are relaxed - cooking or watching TV - and their security systems are not activated.

But, Zinn says, the second-highest number of robberies is between 4am and 7am, when residents are up and about, and the alarms have been deactivated.

"They (the robbers) use noises such as the television set, or preparation of food, as a cover to get into the house unnoticed," he told Weekend Argus this week.

Smaller yappy dogs kept inside the house were the best deterrent, alerting the residents to intruders. In fact, they were an even better deterrent than armed response. At the lowest end of the deterrent scale were security lights.

Security systems outside the house were a better deterrent since they gave residents enough time to initiate self-defence action or call for help.

Zinn started the research two years ago after he found that the police had very little crime intelligence on house robberies and the robbers.

South African cops are not pro-active

For a number of years Zinn has researched intelligence-led pro-active policing as an alternative to the mostly reactive and incident-driven policing model in SA.

This policing-method clearly is only of benefit to the criminals: the conviction rate for house robberies here is only 7.67 percent. In the US it is 53 percent.

This article was originally published on page 4 of Cape Argus on July 18, 2009 The full study has not yet been released to the public and is due for release as an Institute of Security Studies publication later in 2009. Zinn was, however, willing to answer questions about statistics leaked prematurely. telephone 011 471 2469. rzinn@unisa.ac.za

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '